A Pragmatic Study Of Deception In The Robber Bride

This thesis applies Qian's False Information Theory (2002), the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle to the analysis of deception in The Robber Bride, a novel written by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It aims to discuss the pragmatic strategies and effects of deception in this novel.According to Qian's False Information Theory, deception could be divided into two kinds: beneficial false information and harmful false information. 24 dialogues are chosen from the novel as data, and the author makes an analysis of the data by applying the Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle. Based on the previous researches, the author summarizes the pragmatic strategies of deception, that is, misrepresentation of information, withholding information and topic shift, and points out the pragmatic effects of deception, that is, improving the appropriateness of utterances and improving the interpersonal relationship.This research has certain practical significance. Firstly, this study could be used for reference in English teaching. If teachers apply linguistic theories flexibly to classroom teaching, the communicative competence of their students might be improved. Secondly, making use of deception properly could improve people's communicative competence. Thirdly, applying linguistic theories and methods to the analysis of linguistic phenomena in literary works is helpful to the interdisciplinary researches between linguistics and literature.